CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
The stops in between: Havešová Primeval Forest, Udava, Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch and back through Udava. It crosses from Poland into Slovakia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 27 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Where the Bieszczady mountains of Poland meet Slovakia and Ukraine, there is a stretch of forest that has hardly been touched. The Stuzhytsia-Uzhok area, on the Ukrainian side of the watershed near the Uzhok pass, is one component of the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians, a World Heritage group that spans several countries and continues into the Polish Bieszczady and the Slovak Poloniny. The trees here are mostly beech, with fir and sycamore, and in the oldest stands, some of the trunks are huge, with fallen logs lying where they dropped and rotting into the soil, a kind of forest that has almost vanished from Europe. The wildlife is what you might expect from such a place: brown bears, wolves, lynx, and the European bison, which was reintroduced to the Bieszczady in the 1960s.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is where the day begins. Next is Havešová Primeval Forest.
In the far north-east of Slovakia, in the hills where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the beech forests have never been cut. Havešová is one of these primeval forests, a steep slope of giant beech trees, some over forty metres tall and hundreds of years old, with fallen trunks decaying slowly on the forest floor and new trees rising in the gaps. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, inscribed in 2007 and extended since, and it lies within Poloniny National Park, one of the least visited and most remote national parks in Central Europe.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Havešová Primeval Forest comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Udava.
Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 192 km into the recorded legs you reach Udava. Next is Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch.
The wooden church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Turzańsk stands on a gentle slope in the foothills of the Bieszczady mountains, in the far southeast of Poland, near the borders with Slovakia and Ukraine, with its onion domes rising above the trees. It was built in the early nineteenth century by the Lemko or Boyko communities, the Ruthenian highlanders who once lived in these mountains, and it is one of the wooden tserkvas of the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. Inside, an iconostasis of painted icons separates the nave from the sanctuary, and the church is still used for Orthodox services.
Read the complete Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch, about halfway. Next is back through Udava.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Udava sits at 401 km, about halfway. Next is back through Havešová Primeval Forest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Havešová Primeval Forest comes up about 507 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stuzhytsia - Uzhok.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok closes the day.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok → Havešová Primeval Forest is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Havešová Primeval Forest → Udava is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Udava → Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch is 110 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Turzańsk-Tserkva of Saint Michael the Arch → back through Udava is 110 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Udava → back through Havešová Primeval Forest is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Havešová Primeval Forest → Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.